I read the first part of this book, then got bogged down in the 2nd and didn't read the third. I think the most valuable part of the first part. I couldn't go on because of the male-centricity of the author. You would come to the conclusion that only men go to third places while their wives are home tending to the home and kids. I couldn't stomach it anymore.

Avoiding any real political analysis, this is still a great history of third places and what the hell we did wrong with them in America.

I want to like this book a lot more than I do. There's an overwhelming vibe of "you kids get off my lawn" which is so weird considering the topic. Other cons: heavily focused on Western public spaces where white men had easy access, and written pre-internet, it has a hard time imagining technology as a conduit for community.

I felt like there could have been an expansion on some topics but enjoyed nonetheless.

People need connection. True even with the slightly dated language and examples.

If you're like me, raised in the suburbs but strangely attracted to cities and newer suburbs, the opposite of the places where planning departments, homeowners associations, and elected officials have created disjointed subdivisions that lack the vitality of newly revitalized urban areas, read this book.

When I visit places like Richmond, Raleigh, Tampa and I see people who live in the same places they work, shopping, walking, visiting small bistros, taverns, wine bars, tiny parks, local barber shops and down-sized grocery stores, one knows why suburbia is so boring, sterile, and homogenous.

We've banished any commercial development in our neighborhoods. We've banished diversity. There's nowhere to conduct business or meet others unless we get into a car and drive to it. Our children are chauffeured to everything from school to baseball practice and other activities with adults always present in great numbers.

Apartments and condos are placed far out of sight of single-family dwellings, such that people of different means no longer co-mingle or associate.

We've lost the ability to keep a neighborhood tavern family friendly because with our segregation came a loss of civility. A tavern in our neighborhood? Bring on the fistfights and out of control behavior. An apartment building within eyesight of my home? Shudder the thought.

Learn what we've lost and what we are--hermits trapped in our suburban homes and neighborhood, reliant on cars for even the most basic of social interactions.

The thesis of this book is wonderful but Oldenburg loses himself in nostalgia and a meandering story. The examples feel contrived and all of history is viewed from the perspective of men. Grateful for the thesis on the importance of third places and community. But the rest of the book is outdated and repetitive.

I'm sympathetic to the main thesis of this book (that the demise of public places for socialization is a problem in American life). But I don't understand how a professional sociologist could be so tone-deaf regarding how changes in gender relations, race, and class have impacted the societal shifts he's describing. I can't imagine that the book didn't seem dated when it was published in 1989, let alone when he had the chance to revise it for a second edition in 1999. The over-generalization based on his own personal experience is also pretty breathtaking (as is the casual sexism). Not everyone is a 60-plus-year-old white male college professor, and some of the third places Oldenburg describes pejoratively may suit their communities just fine--even though they don't fit in his nostalgic picture of the Main Streets of yesteryear. He also stretches his historical examples beyond credulity.

“The Great Good Place (for American Men)” is a more appropriate title.

I still recommend anyone interested in culture of community read this book, and I give the first 2/3 of the book four-ish stars.

Unfortunately, even in the 1999 third edition, the author chooses to keep the sexist interpretations of women and third places in Part 3.

My hope is the author is more enlightened today than he was 20 years ago. The message received from this book is that communities need to revitalize third places for good ol’ men and their sons, not society as a whole.

Mid book. Part I was probably the best part, then everything started to get yappy and then probably too obsessed with the author's own initial discoveries towards the end.
As written elsewhere, I thought an anthropologist would probably write this book better than a sociologist would.

Oldenburg's notion of the "third place" is so prominent in some circles that it's transcended this book altogether, so I thought I'd go to the source for the full experience.

He's clearly passionate about the subject and has spent time researching it. I appreciated many of his observations, and the closing chapter was an excellent call to service for communitarians everywhere. However, the writing can be dry, and the discussion emphasizes anecdotes rather than the robust, data-driven approach of Putnam's Bowling Alone. Some of the comments are a bit dated too, and I don't know how well they would stack up in today's tech-riddled society.

I saw some reviews saying the book was sexist, among other things, but I think those perspectives are overblown. Oldenburg writes in relation to the culture around him, but his writing felt more like a statement of what he perceived than an argument to keep things the same way. His ideas may be flawed and open to questioning, but I don't think it justifies forgoing the book from the get-go. We should be careful about expecting authors from years past to hold the same worldview as us.

I'd suggest going through the first and third sections, but you can likely skim the titles of the second one and choosing which ones draw you in.

I thought this book was super repetitive, most of what he was trying to say could’ve been broken up into a series of essays (not an entire book). Got bored and skimmed parts 2&3 but like overall the message was good. We need some community places in the US… that’s it that’s the gist.
Also kinda weird with how the places he talks about are mostly men’s spaces.